Resources, trends, and motivation to fulfill the Great Commission

Compiled/Edited by Doug Lucas and Tina McCormick, Team Expansion. Your gift to Brigada will help get motivation, resources, and news/trends out to thousands of Christian workers throughout the globe on a weekly basis. Search over 2 decades of weekly Brigadas using the search box below.
In this issue…
1) DELTA’s 2015 webinar schedule has been released!
2) This Free Widget Lets Your Readers Download Free Arabic Bible
3) Exploring Visual Data about Missions Just Got Easier
4) Threema is Seriously Secure Messaging
5) Lead a Walk through the Bible while Teaching
6) TESOL Training in Chiang Mai
7) Curious about Counselling Centers for Missionaries
8) Short Term Trips to Australia and Thailand
9) Mission Leaders Conference 2015 – UPWARD
10) MissionNannys Helps Take up the Slack for Your Family
11) Doodle.com Can Help Bring Reason to Your Chaotic Schedule
12) Learn about Disciple Making Movements in 12 minutes
13) If You’re Into Helping International Students, Go Here
14) The BackPage: The Best Credit Cards/Mileage Programs
15) Closing Stuff

Not the airline. These 60 minute webinars happen monthly on a Tuesday and cover a variety of topics related to short-term mission trips. They are customized, interactive, and designed to meet your needs and can be done from the comfort and convenience of your desk at work or your couch at home. If you can’t make the webinar time or simply want to watch it again, a recording of the webinar is available for 14 days following the session for those who register. At just $10 per webinar, these are a great value. For the list of webinars and to register, browse to ….

Here are some hard-working field people who have come up with a tool you can install on your website that lets visitors download the Bible in Arabic for free — in a couple of different versions, in fact. Check it out at …

For so many of us the data around global issues and missions in particular can be confusing and too in-depth. What if there was a resource that made understanding the data around mission fun and easy to share with those you are mobilizing or engaging around mission? GMI will be releasing a book just like that by April 6th. You have all heard of GMI’s Missiographics Service

and now GMI has developed a visual book of some of its best infographics. Each infographic comes with extended analysis by well-known mission researcher Justin Long and the book is introduced by EMQ Editor and Wheaton College professor Dr. Scott Moreau. Purchase your copy here:

With Threema’s true end-to-end encryption, you can rest assured that only you and the intended recipient can read your messages. Unlike other popular messaging apps (including those claiming to use encryption), even the server operators and tech people at Threema have absolutely no way to read your messages. There’s no charge per message, but the in-app cost of buying Threema will guarantee Threema’s long-term viability and keep YOU as the customer (rather than some kind of advertising dollars later. (Thanks to Greg for the heads-up on this.)

They might be “Common English Expressions” to you, but to your students, they’ll be precious. Do you need another tool for teaching English using the Bible? Consider “Putting Words in Our Mouths: A Look at Biblical Expressions in American English,” at

Written by Craig, a former missionary in Taiwan, the site includes over 150 idioms, words, and phrases that originated in the English Bible. And since the entries are arranged in chronological order, they tell the Bible story from Genesis through Revelation. “Putting Words in Our Mouths” offers a great path for leading English learners to an understanding of scripture and for leading students of the Bible to a fuller use of the English language. (Thanks Craig!)

Here’s a TESOL training course with Asia’s Center for TESOL from June 1 – July 3. Asia’s Center for TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) conducts intensive, five-week courses leading to a TESOL certificate. For the first three weeks the classes are Monday-Friday, 8-4. For the last two weeks, the classes are 8-12, followed by a two-hour practicum in the afternoon or evening. This totals 120 hours in class and 20 hours of practicum (10 hours observing and 10 hours teaching).
Email Kathykhenwoodactesolcom for application forms or more information or see

Most missions strategists agree that member care is a significant part of missions and ministry health. This past week, we heard from a guy with a growing vision for starting a small business to provide a place for restoration, spiritual retreat and marriage and personal counselling opportunities for those working in Northern Africa and along the Mediterranean. He’s wondering if anyone would be willing to send him any current organizations or businesses operating retreat and/or counselling centres for missionaries (anywhere in the world) that he could use to investigate in his research.

Global Frontier Missions (GFM) is offering short term mission trips this summer focused on the physical and spiritual needs of the refugee populations of unreached people groups in Sydney, Australia and Bangkok, Thailand. The Australia trip is June 6 – June 19, 2015. The Thailand trip is July 4 – July 17. The sign-up deadline for either trip is 03/31/15. For more information, emailKatiegogfmorg
or browse to:

Missio Nexus invites you to join them in Orlando September 24-26, 2015 to look UPWARD as they address today’s pressing leadership questions of Complexity, Legacy, Diversity and Adversity. Speakers include Michael Oh, Nancy Ortberg, Sky Jethani and others. Breakouts will be available in 5 tracks: Executive Leadership, Globally Engaged Churches, Mission Finance & Administration, Personnel and Short-Term Mission. You can also choose from 5 pre-conference events. Check out the schedule and more about the conference here:

As Brian from Train International pointed out this past week, they’re not only helpful for missionaries, they’re also a great entry point for ladies with a heart for the nations to engage in missions and to serve missionaries. As they say on their website, “We prepare a prayer letter and card for you. These contain an explanation of what you will be doing, and your budgetary needs, to give to possible donors. We will send this material to you after you are matched with a family and dates are determined for your visit.”

Then Brian (again, from Train) happened to mention it this past week as well. As Brian said, “It’s incredibly easy and allows you all to coordinate your schedules by identifying potential meeting date and times, then allowing each person to use check boxes for times that would work for them. Set it up in 10 min and it does all the work for you to coordinate 3 or 30 people’s schedules and discover the meeting time that brings together all or the majority.” In our case, it made things easy to find a common slot for all our committee members.

is about 7 minutes long and covers some more commonly asked questions. ActBeyond is a 30-year old mission agency (formerly Mission to Unreached Peoples) solely focused on sending teams to the unreached to start movements. They are part of the global Ephesus Initiative (seeking movements that cascade amongst whole people clusters), and have regular training events for any who wish to learn. For more details see

The ACMI Conference 2015 will explore the theme of international student ministry as the next chapter in missions history, will feature regional meetings, along with meaningful praise and worship led by Proskuneo.

to read about ways to maximize frequent flyer miles, credit card points, and more. If you’re looking for the best credit card, maybe you first need to decide whether you want to play for miles or cash. If you’re looking for cash, it’s hard to beat the Citi Double Cash Card.

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